Awards

Emeritus Professor Tsuneko Okazaki, Nagoya University, has been selected to receive the 2015 Persons of Cultural Merit, according to an announcement by the Japanese government.

The Persons of Cultural Merit, one of the nation's highest honors second only to the Order of Cultural Merit, is awarded to persons who have made a significant contribution to the development and enrichment of culture in Japan.

Prof. Tsuneko Okazaki

Prof. Okazaki is receiving this award for her longtime contributions to the advancement of molecular biology and cultivating excellent molecular biologists, as well as for her joint discovery of "Okazaki fragments" with the late Prof. Reiji Okazaki when they were faculty members of the School of Science at Nagoya University.

Okazaki fragments are short DNA fragments that hold the key to duplicating DNA, which carries genetic information. Professors Reiji and Tsuneko Okazaki and their colleagues discovered that in the DNA replication process, short DNA fragments are synthesized and linked together one after another, resulting in longer DNA molecules.

The Persons of Culture award ceremony will be held at a hotel in Tokyo on Wednesday, November 4, 2015.